Darkfall's new free expansion, "Conquer the Seas", is set to launch late next week. This is a tentative ETA, but even if we miss it, it will be a matter of just a few more days. This took longer than the original estimate because aside from the many new and important features added to the game, there have been hundreds of smaller improvements and thousands of corrections and fixes. A lot of testing is involved in getting this right, and to correct all the problems that come up during the testing.

We understand the excitement and the anticipation for our second expansion. We always do our best to meet our deadlines but taking whatever extra time is needed to get it right is equally important. We do appreciate your patience.

As you may have noticed, we are trying to not only give the Darkfall Community more information about the upcoming Expansion but also clarify on mechanics that have been changed and which are important on a grander scale.

But let's start off with a new addition to the worldmap:
For your convenience you will be able to switch timers for village control points on the world map on and off.

We have also been talking about the sea fortresses and how fixes to AE magic are, of course, important for those new incentives to work properly. Now let us talk about some additional changes that will ensure your experience with the expansion will not be hampered by game mechanics:

Some of you already noticed the new ship we smuggled into the screenshot with the new Sea Fortress. This new Asian style ship has a slightly different layout then the normal ones and will therefore have different tactical uses in a sea battle. However, we don't really want to spoil too much in that regard.

More importantly, ship builders will not only have a much easier time finding the resources needed to build ships, they will also notice that their banks will be substantially less drained when it comes to overall building costs.

But there is more:
Besides the earlier mentioned fix to AE damage involving structures, Captains and Pirates-to-be might be excited about the fact that ships have more obvious speed differences depending on their type, on top of all of the ships now traveling faster in general.

Additionally, out-swimming a ship won't be an option anymore not only due to the speed changes but also due to the fact that the swimmer will notice that he or she will tire faster. Even swimming normally will prove to be a straining undertaking.

Rafts and/or swimmers will have to get out of the way of a ship if they don't want to get pushed along for the ride. This means, players who got stuck on the side of a ship will get properly pushed away and not follow the ships movement directly while hiding from the cannons. That little raft trying to block your vessel? Just push it out of the way. In this case, size does matter!

You will also notice that ship cannons provide more BOOM for the buck. Or in other words, their damage has been increased.

Last but not least, there will be old and new dangers in the water, which will keep you on your toes, or should I say, flippers.